/ 




Glass. 
Book. 



EL 1 7 7 



LSfe 



/ 



EULOGY 



/3- / 



ON THE HONORABLE, 



JOHN QUllCf 4DIM8, 



DELIVERED MARCH 24, 1848, 



AT THE REQUEST OF THE 



STUDENTS OF DARTMOUTH COLLEGE. 



BY NATHAN LORD, D. D. s president. 



HAJSTOVER : 
PRINTED AT THE DARTMOUTH PRESS. 

1848. 



£ 3 7 7 



2 1 



l{ 



EULOGY. 



It is easy to enact a local pageant for political effect ; to 
exalt a military chieftain, or a public orator. A crowd can be 
assembled for any purpose ; to observe the tricks of a mounte- 
bank, or the execution of a criminal. Any thing that speaks 
sharply to the senses of men will move the masses as by an 
electric impulse, and sway them to the will of the practised 
operator. But when a great nation stops suddenly in its wild 
career, and bows itself before the God of nations ; when it 
confesses to him, as if struck by the remembrance of his ma- 
jesty, and its own un worthiness, the cause of that effect is not 
magnetic, but moral. Something has touched not the nerves, 
but the heart. 

The recent death of Mr. Adams awakened that moral sym- 
pathy. The emotion was profound and universal. But it 
was peculiar. It was not as when Washington died. Some 
can recollect that then the great heart suffered a momen- 
tary paralysis. Consternation fell upon us. But in the speedy 
reaction there was a universal gush of sorrow. The nation 
was dissolved and found its relief in floods of tears. The old 
men and children, the young men and maidens wept togeth- 
er. We buried him as a father, a deliverer, and turned away 
from his grave in an agony of mourning. The men and 
women of that age, who survive, weep still at the name of 
Washington. It was not because he was not great ; nor be- 
cause the idea of his greatness was not, of itself, sufficient to 
have repressed that kind of sensibility. But it was because 
his greatness consisted in such a singular tempering of all the 



qualities of a virtuous patriot, it seemed not to be greatness. 
It brought him down condescendingly to our level, to be one 
of us whom he had saved, and we thought not so much of 
his character, of his life or his death, as of our loss, and the 
world's loss. It was then, in the infant State, as it was once, 
in a partial instance, in the infant Church, when the brethren 
of the great Apostle fell upon his neck and kissed him, sor- 
rowing most of all for the words which he spake, that they 
should see his face no more. 

But in respect to Mr. Adams it was not so. The nation, 
produced, as it were, and noutished, and set in its course by 
Washington, has grown up to lusty, independent manhood. 
Mr. Adams grew up with it. But he was a man in his child- 
hood, and always kept himself above it, and before it. An il- 
lustrious father's experience and wisdom produced their nat- 
ural effects in his opening mind, and gave him ability beyond 
his years and his generation. He always maintained his 
eminence by a corresponding discipline. He had our genius 
and spirit, our principles and sympathies, yet a wider com- 
prehension than any of his cotemporaries, a more profound 
learning, and a more weighty authority, He bore successive 
offices of the State, and at length its Chief Magistracy, with 
extraordinary freedom and facility, and then was able — a mar- 
vellous anomaly in the history of great men — to descend from 
the height of power and honor, and to mingle, without loss of 
dignity, in the turmoil and wrangling of a popular assembly. 
There, the man of no party, and no clique, he stood on his 
own principles, and judged, on his own account, of all meas- 
ures. He was always ready, direct, uncompromising and se- 
vere, contending equally with friends and foes, when they 
opposed themselves to his better knowledge and superior wis- 
dom ; yet submitting quietly as a child, when his voice could 
no more be heard. He was a monitor, a rebuker, a denounc- 
er, or a prophet, just as the varying moods of an inconstant 
and noisy people aroused the energies or sensibilities of his 
quenchless soul. At the death of sue a a man we could not 
weep. Besides, we have grown too old, and stout, and wick- 



ed to weep. Rather, we are astounded, afraid, and anxious. 
We look about us uneasily till the pressure of the visitation is 
relieved. We lament, but with a mingled feeling of re- 
morse for our own errors, and of admiration at his exalted vir- 
tues. We pay him the tribute of our praise and our regrets ; 
but wait, in the performance of his obsequies, only to go on 
more impetuously in our fatuous career, when the warnings 
and remonstrances of " the old man eloquent" are forgotten. 

Forgotten, but not by all. It is true politically, as religious- 
ly, that in all periods of decline, there is a remnant, the men 
of true virtue, fewer, always, than we could wish, more, fre- 
quently, than we fear. By them, if we are not led back, in 
some favored crisis of affairs, to our first principles and affec- 
tions, yet our catastrophe may be stayed. Therefore, the 
memory of Mr. Adams will be precious ; and his influence, 
in minds that can appreciate and accept it, may be more ef- 
fectual in his death than in his life. 

The occasion does not require me to recite the course of 
Mr. Adams' life, or the circumstances of his death. Nor would 
it suit my purpose to review his political careen-. My object 
is not biography, or criticism. I leave these to the curious and 
the politicians. I have no care to detail incidents, or discuss 
measures. Other themes better become these halls. I am call- 
ed to speak his eulogy; and I would search with you for those 
hidden elements of character from which his greatness, as by 
a course of natural vegetation, proceeded. I would com- 
mend to you some of the principles which lay at the founda- 
tion of his admitted excellence, by which also you may be- 
come like him benefactors of your country and of mankind. 
In a College, more than elsewhere, such an example should 
be recorded and remembered. 

I. " The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." That 
great lesson of Inspiration was early inwrought into the mind 
of Mr. Adams. It was the first lesson that his mother tausrht 
him. It was enforced by a mother's proper example and 
authority. Whoever would know the secret of his greatness 
must go back to the nursery where the Pastor's daughter be- 



gan to form the great man of the State by the principles 
of the Chnrch. The influence was like precious ointment 
upon his youthful head. Its savor was never lost. In his 
native fields, or in the city ; in domestic intercourse, or in for- 
eign travel ; in the school, or the College ; in courtly circles, 
or the coteries of philosophers and statesmen ; in the engross- 
ing pursuits of his profession, or the more distracting engage- 
ments of public office, from the clerkship to the Presidency ; 
and in the subsequent sturdy and angry conflicts of the po- 
litical arena, the God of his Puritan mother was ever before 
him. He was guided by the Divine Word. That Word was 
made the test of all other learning. Through his long life a 
part of every morning was spent in the study of the Holy 
Scriptures, in different languages, with careful comparison, 
and serious inquiry ; and he walked, through every suceed- 
ing day, in the light of the everlasting Law. 

But it would be injustice to Mr. Adams to describe him 
merely as a conscientious man. It is probable that he was 
conversant with the Scriptures mainly as a miraculous and 
plenary Revelation of God, republishing, with greater light 
and authority, the ancient oral Revelations, from which we 
have derived the system of Natural Religion. The religious 
statesman, from the nature of his studies, and of his necessa- 
ry intercourse with men of the world, and especially from his 
practical concern with legislative and administrative govern- 
ment, is liable to tarry on this threshold of the Sanctuary. 
But Mr. Adams' mind was not formed exclusively upon such 
a model. He rejected all models. He passed the limits of 
sect, and had sympathy with all who accepted the supernatu- 
ral truths of Revelation. He extended his fellowship wherever 
he felt the presence of heavenly sentiments and affections. 
He loved best to tarry and to be edified where he perceived 
the motions of a Divine life, according to the words of Jesus 
Christ. He seemed to aspire to that heaven whence Christ 
the Creator proceeded forth, where now he ever liveth to 
send down the Spirit of love to all believing and loving 
minds, and from which he will be revealed again in judgment 



These distinctively Christian elements evidently existed in his 
mind, though not productive of that well denned Theology, 
or that fervent affection, which are their natural product, and 
which might have been attained by him in different pursuits. 
Those who knew him most intimately could better speak of 
him in reference to that interior principle of faith which is best 
exhibited in the habits of private life. But this general effect 
of faith was evident; viz. that he overcame the world. He act- 
ed in opposition to evil, and in defence of good, during a long 
life, in which these antagonistic principles were in violent 
warfare in the world around him. We accept the proof of the 
new life of God produced by his Spirit, in the unfaltering 
disciple, who penitently bowed himself as a sinner before 
God, and looked for redemption only through Jesus Christ ; 
in whom existed no taint of superstitious or rationalistic 
unbelief ; who submitted his moral judgments and affections 
to the test of the Divine Word ; who refused the enticement 
of Princes and Ambassadors to violate the Sabbath ; to whose 
lips obsceneness, falsehood and profaneness were unknown, 
even in circles where such vices would be no disparagement ; 
who never took advantage of his personal or official influence 
to violate temperance, purity, or good faith ; who was de- 
vout towards God, just, compassionate and forgiving 
towards men ; and who desired earnestly a better state, where 
right knowledge and true virtue only could be found. Such 
a man might be seen mostly in the outer courts of God's 
temple ; for there, as a civil officer, it would naturally befit 
him to find Ins place. But he must be supposed to know 
the way to the place of offering and intercession, to the 
mercy seat and the Shekinah. God did not see fit to honor 
him like those worthies of the ancient Theocracy, of more ex- 
cellent faith, who dwelt in caves and deserts, or who wander- 
ed in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, afflicted, tormented^ 
of whom the world was not worthy. Rather, he was classed 
with those few righteous kings of Israel, who were raised up 
to chastise idolatry, and to vindicate the righteous govern- 
ment of God. 



8 

II. With the religions element is naturally associated the 
moral. The two tables are sent down together. Mr. Adams 
was distinguished for his integrity. In this respect it would 
be difficult to find his equal. But I use integrity, not in the 
popular sense of honesty, veracity, sincerity, although these 
terms were applicable to him in their full extent ; but to sig- 
nify entireness, soundness and proportion both of private and 
official character. Rightly trained in infancy and childhood, 
his moral instincts were true and unpervertcd. Consequent- 
ly, as the social relations were gradually unfolded to him, the 
sense of responsibility became an active principle in his mind. 
He was born and educated at the right period for moral im- 
pression. Then, perhaps, more than ever before in history, 
man, his rights and duties ; the State, its groundwork, consti- 
tution and forms, its laws, conditions and relations, were sub- 
jects of daily discussion. In the circles where he moved 
these subjects were attentively considered by men of as great 
wisdom, experience and virtue as have lived in this, or any 
other age, or nation, England alone excepted in the time of 
the Commonwealth. Under such influences he appreciated 
human life, the social state, and the importance of making the 
conduct of life subservient to its proper ends. He is under- 
stood to have been remarkable for his self-discipline to pre- 
serve a sound mind in a sound body. He observed the laws 
of life, and of the mind, on his individual responsibility, and 
out of regard to his family and the State. Whatever was 
necessary to qualify him for his duties he studied and carried 
into cfFect. He omitted no engagement belonging to any 
place or relation in which he was called to act, never weary, 
never absent, never behind his time. All this was his habit, set- 
tled as the use of his necessary food. It was continued, till the 
close of his life, not from the principle of ambition, but the sense 
of duty. He felt that any thing else would be wrong. And not 
merely from the sense of duty, but because the right was 
more agreeable than the wrong. It would have been no priv- 
ilege to him to have received a dispensation. He was too 
much of a Puritan to desire indulgence. 



9 

The aim of Mr. Adams was to be right and wise; right in 
his principles, and wise in his application of them ; in which 
consists all true morality. His standard and rule were God's 
Revelations. He could not, therefore, be cheated by sophis- 
try, and he would not be seduced by temptation. Moral dis- 
tinctions were as familiar to him, in idea, as light and dark- 
ness, and he could not be led practically to confound them. 
He rejected the code of honor, the rules of etiquette, and the 
maxims of policy. Chesterfield was his scorn, and Machia- 
velli his abhorrence. In this lay his strength. It raised him 
above chicanery and corruption. It separated him from syco- 
phants and double-dealers. It quelled the fear of controversy 
or resistance. Strong in principle, he regarded not conse- 
quences otherwise than to provide against unnecessary evils. 
For the rest he cared not. He knew where was his last re- 
fuge, and that the eternal Rock could not be started from its 
foundations. He rejected that most wretched of all fallacies) 
that what is morally wrong may be politically right. He de- 
nounced the error and its abettors. He would not, for his life, 
have otherwise dishonored the Ruler of the world. He prov- 
ed that a statesman may be just. That he sometimes erred 
cannot be doubted, for he had the common passions of our 
nature, ; but his errors were not from the want, but from an 
excess of virtue. They were such as are always likely to be 
corrected in the natural reaction of a virtuous mind. He 
could be impetuous and unyielding ; but he was not obsti- 
nate, or malignant. He could be impatient and angry. But 
he was not resentful. He loved the arena, for there were ques- 
tions and conflicts on which great destinies depended ; and he 
could be terrible in the strife. But when it was over,hc would 
leave results to the sovereign arbiter, and go away to refresh 
himself with the sports of children. 

Mr. Adams' extraordinary sense of justice placed him in 
some attitudes of great dignity and sublimity which deserve 
the special notice of young men. His defence of the right of 
petition is probably the most exalted specimen of learned, in- 
dependent and stirring eloquence in forensic history. He 

2 



10 

held that right to be the citadel of civil and religious liberty. 
He cared not who claimed it, on what occasions, with 
what arguments, or in what spirit. They might be wise, or 
foolish ; sane, or delirious ; Christians, Jews, pagans, or inn- 
dels. They might intend union, or disorganization ; life, or 
death ; and their related measures might be in correspond- 
ence with their ttue, or false ideas. It was not material. The 
principle was sacred. It was vital. It was worth more than 
Church, or State. It was worth more than the universe. For, 
it was necessary to the true ends of life. It was fundamental 
to the being of society. There could be no universe without 
it. Wherefore it must be maintained, though the heavens fall. 
He threw himself, with his exhaustless stores and Ins mighty 
energies, into the deadly sfrife. He comprehended the whole 
scene, its difficulties, its dangers, and its results. It may be 
said that he went alone ; for, who of all the great men about 
him had courage to take with him his advanced position, or 
who that dared, had abilitv to sustain with him the dreadful 
shock ; for he went to battle against a crazed and exasperat- 
ed nation. Day after day, year after year, the contest was 
prolonged. It was severe, sublime and terrible. The heavens 
thundered ; lightnings glared ; the earth shook ; volcanoes 
belched out their glowing fragments ; lofty towers top- 
pled down ; mountains were cast into the sea. Now we 
seem to lose him in the dust and smoke. His voice is drown- 
ed in the tumultuous din. Again his veteran form emerges. 
"We see the gleaming of his steel. We hear the strokes of 
his thundering arm. His shout rises shrill above the fiery 
storm, <; Justice ! Justice ! in the name of God, Justice 
and Libert}* !'' He conquers. He reclines upon his armor 
reeking, but not fainting, and utters his memorable acknowl- 
edgement of the Power that helped him, " Thank God, the 
seal is broken." Can we wonder, that when the conqueror 
at length fell, on the very scene of his victory, struck not by 
an earthly power, but by the hand of God, then the nation 
bowed its head ? 



11 

The discussions of slavery, in the halls of Congress, which 
grew mainly out of the controversy on the right of petition, 
gave occasion to Mr. Adams to exhibit the same profound 
and unconquerable sense of justice and equity. Some of his 
passages, in this respect, are unequalled, except in his own 
biography. Had the Representatives of the nation calmly 
listened to their petitioners ; had they taken judicious measures 
to instruct the country, and quiet its agitations ; in the discus- 
sions which must have ensued. Mr. Adams would probably 
have been less impassioned, but even more earnest and im- 
pressive. It is ever to be regretted that his views and those 
of other distinguished men could not have been so drawn out, 
upon the most comprehensive and impartial survey of the 
whole field of inquiry. Then the strife would have been, 
mainly, where it ought to have been, in the Legislature. The 
investigation and criticism would have been profound, intel- 
ligent and awful ; the people would have waited with a sub- 
dued and impartial spirit : the hopeless confusion of ideas, 
now existing, would have been prevented ; and the true issue 
would, by this time, have been put, which is now impossible, 
or too late, before the nation, and the world. 

To what conclusions Mr. Adams would have come, in the 
course of such an inquiry, it is difficult to conjecture. As it 
was, the ground on which lie >lood is evident ; viz. the Nat- 
ural Law, the Decalogue, and the Christian principles of re- 
ciprocity and benevolence. He tri:d the institution of slave- 
ry simply in the lights of essential and preceptive morality. 
In those lights he saw cause to condemn it as a moral evil. 
He desired to see it abolished, politically, because of its im- 
morality ; yet not with the madness of an incendiary, the ma- 
lignity of an atheist, or the destructive fury of a revolutiona- 
ry sans culotte. He would not, in destroying slavery, have 
precipitated the related institutions of Church and State. It is 
true, that with his determined sense of justice, and in consist- 
ency with his defence of the right of petition, he might have 
found himself obliged, at length, to proceed to that extremity. 
He would not have chosen to die before his time ; but Sam- 



12 

son-like, if a maddened people had imprisoned him, and pu? 
out his eyes, when brought out for their sport between the pil- 
lars of the idolatrous temple, he would have been likely, by a 
desperate effort, to bury himself and the nation in a common 
ruin. But he was a Puritan, and not a Jacobin. He would 
not have denounced his country till his country had absolute- 
ly denied its God. And then he would have chosen to die 
with his country, rather than to live and revel, like a Jaco- 
bin, in anarchy and blood. 

But if the discussions on slavery had proceeded as 
they ought, Mr. Adams might have taken, at length, a dif- 
ferent position. For, though he did not seem to see it, the 
ground on which he stood was doubtful. Where he stood 
he was firm, erect, sublime. Admitting the correctness of his 
issue, his course was generous, and Christian. But the true 
issue is not, whether slavery, assumed to be a human insti- 
tution, is contrary to justice and benevolence ; or whether, 
being morally and politically bad, it ought to be abolished ? 
But the issue has respect both to the basis of slavery and its 
character. It is whether slavery is not a positive institution 
of God, and whether, being a positive institution, it is not 
morally and politically bad, only as it is unrighteously or im- 
prudently administered. That is the issue of slavery ; viz. its 
Jus Divinum. We cannot safely proceed a step till we have 
gained a foothold by settling that original and fundamental 
question of the Divine Bight. Otherwise we are bewildered 
in a hopeless labyrinth. Unhappily, that question has not 
found admittance to the legislative halls. It is forestalled be- 
fore the people. It is hardly known in the institutions of 
learning. It is mainly excluded from the Church ; or, both 
in Church and State, it is passed over without examination, 
or decided without adequate reference to the only legitimate 
authority. How could it be otherwise at a period when the 
Divine Bight of any thing is almost an obsolete idea, and 
when the most essential and vital questions of Church and 
State are settled, just like polytechnics, upon the judgment of 
conceited rcasoners, or idle dreamers, in lyoeums. academies 



13 

and district schools, and not, before the only legitimate tribu- 
nals, upon the authority of God ? 

The question of slavery takes us to the Bible, and not to 
nature. It is a question above the instincts, or induction, or 
speculation. And it takes us to the Bible to inquire, not at 
the Decalogue, or at Christ's new commandment, but God's 
municipal enactments. It is a question, not about the prin- 
ciples of natural and moral government, but its administra- 
tion. It is a question, not of right and duty, but of crime and 
punishment ; not of tenure, but forfeiture ; not of the original 
relations of man to man, but the violent breaking up and sun- 
dering of those relations for the sins of men. It is a question, 
morally, about the Divine jealousy in visiting the iniquities of 
the fathers upon the children. And, politically, it is a ques- 
tion, not about the maxims of an uncertain and varying econ- 
omy, but the necessary balance of a disordered system. It is 
not a question of capital, and trade, and labor, according to 
any superficial ordering of these distinctions ; but essentially, 
and morally, in reference to their groundwork and their true 
ends ; a question between order and insubordination, govern- 
ment and anarchy, life and death, in this upside down world 
of ours, till " the times of the Restitution." And because it is 
a question of simple Revelation, and such a question as it is, 
though we know not how Mr. Adams, upon a deeper study, 
would have decided it, it is a matter of extreme regret that a 
mind like his, so full of reverence for the Bible, and so able to 
extricate its meaning, on such a subject, should not have been 
drawn peremptorily to the inquiry. 

I am aware that it would have been difficult for Mr. Adams, 
or any other American statesman, to approach that question 
without extreme embarrassment. For the nation had pre- 
judged it. It had placed itself before the world, in the Declar- 
ation of Independence, on the fallacy of a petitio principii. 
It is true, the nation had taken back the assumption in the Con- 
stitution and Laws, and more practically, in the system of sla- 
very. But that made the case no better, but worse. For, so 
we stood before the world with a falsehood in one hand, or 



14 

the other ; a fatal dilemma, which to statesmen, as wellf 
as to philosophers, is the most inconvenient of all positions 
The Representatives of the nation could not have chosen to 
face an alternative so humiliating and severe. However, no 
man sooner than Mr. Adams would have submitted to that 
necessity, if naturally laid upon him ; for he was magnani- 
mous. No man would have sooner corrected, if possible, the 
singular anomaly. Or, if it could not be absolutely correct- 
ed, and if the nation must stand false on one side or the oth- 
er, no man would have been more careful to mitigate the 
evil, and avert the danger, by shifting the falsehood from the 
right hand to the left; that is, by correcting his issue, and ac- 
cepting the consequences, not of a treasured falsehood, but of 
an unintentional mistake. 

The ground taken by Mr. Adams on the questions of Chi- 
na and Oregon is another evidence of his severe attachment 
to general principles, and his fearless defence of them, in dis- 
regard of political views, and the measures of party. That a 
nation ought not to separate itself from the fellowship of the 
nations ,and refuse to bear its part in the work of life, is a prin- 
ciple of Natural Law, and of the Decalogue. It is practical- 
ly necessary to the greatest good of mankind in general. By 
consequence, it is equally evident, that when this fundament- 
al obligation is violated by any nation, upon whatever pre- 
texts, the right of redress must exist somewhere. This right 
can be administered only according to God's ordinary meth- 
od of chastising guilty nations ; viz. by war. The principle 
involved is of duty, crime, and punishment, without which 
the world as it is could not subsist. For this principle all 
States are founded by Divine authority, the bounds of their 
habitation are appointed, and the sword is put into their hand. 
In accordance with it God set up and administered the pat- 
tern State of the ancient Theocracy. 

By equal reason it is evident that a State ought not to appro- 
priate territory which it could not occupy, to the prejudice of 
other States, or any one of the family of States, which might 
be able to fulfil, or was in the course of fulfilling the Divine 



15 

injunction to "replenish the earth." — On these principles Mr. 
Adams took his stand. And his position, in point of princi- 
ple, was not the less sound, because he had been led to it, as 
he was bold to profess, by the word of God. 

Whether, in the one case, the right to compel China resid- 
ed in Great Britain ; or, in the other, whether the United 
States had reasonable ground of controversy with England, 
in consistency with these principles, are wholly different ques- 
tions. They are questions of policy, subject of course to judg- 
ment; and opinion. They are to be settled mainly in the lights 
of civil and diplomatic history, and of political economy. In 
these lights Mr. Adams had walked intelligently for threescore 
years and ten. With such questions he had been more con- 
versant, and had a better knowledge of them, than any other 
living man. Still, he might err. For, in the application of 
our principles, there may be sometimes doubts and difficul- 
ties which neither rectitude nor wisdom can satisfactorily over- 
come. In such cases, the accurate balancing of opposite 
probabilities, and the adjustment of conflicting evidence may 
depend more on temperament than virtue. In some condi- 
tions the soulless and bloodless politician may make a sound- 
er inference, or a shrewder guess, than the highminded and 
earnest statesman, whose shoes' latchet he is not worthy to 
unloose. Mr. Adams' veins were sometimes very full. 

I have chosen to put Mr. Adams in these lights, not because 
I would commend his views of these questions, as questions 
of policy, for I do not accept them ; but because they illus- 
trate his strength of principle, and his manly independence. 
Confident in his own judgment he dared, in the one case, to 
stand against the general opinion of the civilized world ; and, 
in the other, to give seeming countenance to a government 
which had not his confidence ; a government, which he did 
not believe to be capable of maintaining its own decisions, and 
which, in its zeal to extend the domain of the country, would 
be likely to hasten its catastrophe. 

In all these respects, the example of Mr. Adams is worthy of 
the especial consideration of young men, and now, more than 



16 

ever, the educated young men of our country. For, we 
live in an age when these virtues of our illustrious fathers are 
dying out ; an age which exalts the voice of the people above 
the voice of God, and which on all hands, and in all parties, 
concedes to public opinion what it refuses to the moral law. 

III. The moral qualities of Mr. Adams were the natural 
foundation, as they were also the proper measure of his intel- 
lectual greatness. "We deny that there can be the highest or- 
der of intellect without an active moral sense. For the intel- 
lectual power of the mind is physical, and it can have no true 
guidance but from a still higher and more authoritative phys- 
ical power, the conscience. We deny, also, that the highest 
physical ability of any, or all the mental powers can exist 
without the moral life, the heavenly love, produced through 
the Gospel in the soul. Otherwise, the mind is an automaton, 
its discipline is mechanical, and its attainments are merely 
artistic, formal and superficial. Mind, in distinction from 
the heart, is as incapable of growth in its proper order, as 
the body without the principle of life. It may be enlarged 
artificially and mechanically, by accretion, but not by the 
natural process of developement. Or, if the moral essence is 
corrupted, then, equally, without a restored healthy activity, 
the developement of the intellect will be partial, disproportion- 
ate and unshapely. There are doubtless immoral men of 
great intellects. But they will not bear a dispassionate and 
searching criticism. They are great only in some things, and 
for some purposes. They are great, not for all, but for their 
party or sect, their patrons or retainers. They fail in 
those exigencies which require entireness, soundness and 
self-devotion. They are cast down when the selfish and par- 
tial interests which they serve are no longer ascendant. Or, 
they are great only while they live, or in the age which has 
felt the power of their fascination. Posterity tries them. The 
tinsel decays and drops off by time. The hidden fallacy 
works out. They are monuments, not of human greatness, 
but of human folly ; of folly on their own part, in seeking for 
excellence without virtue ; and on the world's part, in its be- 



17 

ing cheated, generation after generation, by such false lights 
that steam up from beneath to lure it to its ruin. 

Such was not the greatness of Mr. Adams. Without doubt 
his mental powers were constitutionally of a high order, and 
well-proportioned. But he was not more excellent, in this re- 
spect, than many others. Had not his mother taught him, 
and had he not submitted his understanding daily and de- 
voutly to the Bible, the difference between him and most oth- 
er great men would not have been remarkable. As it was, 
he became greater, because he did not, like them, invert God's 
natural order, and put the intellect before the conscience and 
the heart. He began at the foundation. Consequently, his 
greatness was in essence, not in accident ; in quality, not in 
measure ; in spirit, not in form ; in matter, not in manner ; in 
conduct, not in management ; in comprehension, truthfulness, 
and efficiency, not in arrangement, affectation, and finesse. 
But for his moral discipline he would have been a pedant, 
but not a scholar ; a politician, but not a statesman ; a skil- 
ful wire puller in the drama of his country, but not its master 
spirit, the embodiment of its genius, the representative of its 
vital principles. Others might have been as tall as he, but 
not as sturdy ; more graceful, but less majestic ; moving fan- 
tastically in the breeze, but upturned or shattered in the storm. 
Others could have trimmed the sails of the ship of State, but 
not like him controlled the helm ; they could heave the lead, 
but not find the latitude ; they could contribute to the glad- 
ness of the scene under sunny skies, or on peaceful waters, 
but only to its terrors in the whirlwind, and among the rocks. 
Mr. Adams' mind had magnitude, proportion, fullness, solid- 
ity and strength, the effect of growth, and not inflation. The 
moral life was in it ; its aliment was righteous principle, and 
consequently it was ever vigorous and productive. The green 
leaf of the spring failed not before its time ; its blossom died 
not unnaturally enforced ; and he brought forth fruit an hun- 
dred fold in his old age ; for his root drew nourishment from 
the depths. The root, the tree, the leaf, the fruit were full of 
sap when the lightning came. Whose mental stores like his, 

3 



18 

so ample, so varied, so adjusted, so ready at command, so 
pertinent to all the exigencies of his private, or official life, so 
treasured up for the benefit of his successors, and the instruc- 
tion of mankind ? 

Was the characteristic of Mr. Adams' intellect genius ? No. 
Or talent ? No. Was it perception, penetration, judgment, 
fancy ? No. In any one of these he was equalled by other 
men who had unwisely stimulated some special faculty, or 
had made haste to be great by popular affectation. But it 
was all these naturally combined, and trained, proportionately, 
to the search of truth, in exact, severe and painful discipline. 
Did he become great by observation, by reading, by thought, 
by writing, by discourse ? Not by any one of these alone, 
but by the practical harmonizing of them all. For, who like 
him made all the senses inlets to the materials of knowledge ? 
Who like him gathered up not the floating, ephemeral and 
and trashy learning of the times, but the matured wisdom of 
the wise ? Who like him elaborated these treasured ele- 
ments into systems of his own, by which the men of onesid- 
ed arid partial views, great though they were, were confound- 
ed through his earnest and unartificial eloquence ? Was he 
a man of theory, or of practice ? Was he a discoverer, an 
organizer, an administrator ? No one of these alone in sepa- 
ration from the others, or according to any mere ideal of these 
distinct classes of great men. For, though he could soar into 
imaginary worlds, he accepted nothing that would not stand 
experiment, nothing that suited not the actual states and con- 
ditions of society, or that did not consist with the Revelations 
of God. Do you ask for analysis ? He could sift. Or, for 
synthesis ? He could construct. Yet was he not a captious 
critic, nor a conceited architect. His mind, in this respect, 
was correctly shadowed by his style of private life. He was 
not envious to mar the palace of his ostentatious neighbor ; 
nor vain to excel him, though he might have done it, in the 
magnificence of his own dwelling. He was better suited 
with the venerable and well appointed, though plain and 
homely mansion of his fathers. 



19 

We could wish that the distinctively Christian element had 
been more active in the mind of Mr. Adams. It would have 
more exalted his faculties, and given them a higher direction 
for the ffood of others. But, as a statesman, he might then 
have been too far beyond his age. He had sufficient virtue 
to keep him above the atmosphere of mere worldly men, but 
not out of their sight. He was Christian enough to refuse 
the fashion and pageantry of this world, to abhor its thought- 
lessness and frivolity, its loose maxims, and its vain pursuits; 
but not enough, by the absolute renouncing of the world, to fall 
off entirely from its regards. Had he lived in a great city he 
would have been thought a Stoic, or a Cynic, which he was 
not. But he would nevertheless have ruled the city, be- 
cause, there, a Stoic or a Cynic is not so uncongenial, as the 
determined and consistent Christian. Less of the spirit of 
righteousness would have reduced him nearer to the level of 
the generality ; more would have alienated their confidence. 
In either case he could not have led them, but would have 
lost their suffrage, and the country would not have enjoyed 
the benefit of his official labors. A monarch, if he willed, 
might be also a Prophet, or an Apostle. But, in a Democra- 
cy, no man, who is greatly above the moral sympathies of the 
people, can be a ruler, except in the time of rebuke and dan- 
ger. Mr. Adams was as elevated in virtue as he could be 
without losing his position ; and that he would have lost, as 
it was, but for his profound ability. Yet he was not what he 
was for the sake of his position, but because of Him who 
giveth to every man severally as he will. He was God's in- 
strument to modify the evil tendencies of the declining State, 
not to accumulate the aggressive energy of Christianity, or 
exemplify its passive virtues. It would indeed be great glory 
to Christianity that such a man as Mr. Adams should be wor- 
thy of the faggot. But Christianity must not glory, when the 
world would suffer, out of measure, from the quenching of its 
great lights. The Church wants its confessors and martyrs. 
But the State must also have, occasionally, its righteous ml- 



20 

ers, or the bow of promise would be broken. God's wisdom 
is best. 

To Mr. Adams the end of earth has come. The sage has 
uttered his wisdom ; the patriot has ended his labors. Cen- 
trally, between the stormy Capes of Massachusetts Bay, on 
the confines of the Old Colony, between Plymouth Rock and 
Bunker Hill, within a humble enclosure, the nation has laid 
the dust of its great statesman. He sleeps among his breth- 
ren, children of the Puritans, himself a Puritan, and the best 
civil representative that remained of a race of men, whose like 
has not been known in the annals of the world. He lived 
through the whole period of his nation's constitutional histo- 
ry. He contributed, more than any other man, to perpetuate 
its first principles, and to keep alive the genius of its insti- 
tutions. He had a better comprehension of its relations, and 
a more profound sense of its interests. He left it the richest 
legacy of civil knowledge, the most illustrious example of 
patriotic virtue. He received its highest honors, living and 
dead. As his body is borne from the Capitol to his native 
village, the husbandmen in the fields stand still as the rush- 
ing cortege passes, and raise their hats from their heads. 

Shall he live still in the life of his nation ? Shall the 
country of Washington and the Adamses be worthy of its 
greatest benefactors ? Shall the nation live ? Or, must it 
follow the law of the individual, " ashes to ashes, dust to 
dust ?" Who shall solve the problem of its prospective his- 
tory ? What result of civil and religious liberty shall be writ- 
ten for a future age ? That problem will be solved speedily. 
Every thing for good or evil vegetates rapidly in a state of 
freedom. The results of popular liberty will soon be written. 
It requires now but a day to revolutionize a kingdom ; and 
but a few years for a liberated people to reveal what is in 
their hearts. A half century performs now, what was the 
work of a decade of centuries when man was held in by bit and 
bridle. The nations hasten to their destiny. What is that 
destiny ? Shall we ask of the past ? Shall we ask of the 
present ; ?aot of the inventors, the politicians, the poets. 



21 

or the orators ; but of the statesmen and philosophers ? They 
have told us already. We know what such men said in 1793. 
We know what they said when the federal idea of our repub- 
lic went out with the elder Adams. What would they tell us 
now ? the great men of England, Germany, France, and the 
old men of our own country ? What should we hear from 
De Tocqueville, Guizot, or from less interested observers, 
looking down from some height upon the Tuilleries, the 
Chamber of Deputies, or the Boulevards ? They would tell 
us that man reacts from superstition to fanaticism, from re- 
straint and servitude to intoxication. They would tell us that 
the next chapter of the history of Christendom will be of an- 
archy ; that having learned our modern lesson of human per- 
fectibility, speculatively and romantically, from the reason, 
and not from the Bible, we shall in due time learn its essen- 
tial fallacy, practically and morally, from the Providence of 
God. But where is the point of rest between these extremes 
they know not. We must ask that question not of the State, 
but of the Church. We must ask it of a higher Oracle than 
man, of Theology, of Christ's Apocalypse. Do you say, we 
need not ask, for our country has tried the experiment ; it has 
solved the problem ; that here humanity is disenthralled, free, 
intelligent, successful and triumphant ? But what is human- 
ity ? All history, past, present and future, is but a demon- 
stration of humanity, of humanity sanctified on the one hand, 
unsanctified on the other, and these invisible families of good 
and evil proximately represented by the visible organizations 
of Church and State. Are Church and State, in our coun- 
try, right, each in itself, and both in their reciprocal relations? 
Have we attained to the true ideal ? Are we likely to attain 
it? Are we blending the roses of all colors in one concen- 
trated glorious white, the image of all truth and purity ? Are 
we becoming the true Theocracy, the end of promise ? Or, 
as man more affects self-government, does he not, practically, 
become more independent of the government of God? Is not 
our modern idea of the social compact necessarily atheistic ? 
The demonstration is not yet complete. The history is not 



22 

yet written. Our country is still a problem. "Who shall 
solve it ? If you say, not Jhe old men, then, I answer, the 
young men. I repeat emphatically, that is the practical les- 
son of the new generation. The responsibility is theirs. If 
they want it, God throws it on them, a greater than he ever 
laid on the shoulders of men. If any of our young men 
learn not that lesson truly and wisely, if they bear not that 
burden with the principles and spirit of their pilgrim fathers, 
let them never pass by the -graveyard at Quincy, let them 
never find their way to the valley of the Potomac, 



LBD'ib I 



